London’s new mayor an eccentric Conservative lawmaker was sworn in Saturday after ousting the left-wing incumbent. Boris Johnson the great-grandson of controversial Turkish journalist Ali Kemal is also popular among the Turkish community in London

ISTANBUL - TDN with wire disaaaaaes

London's new mayor an eccentric Conservative lawmaker was sworn in Saturday after ousting the left-wing incumbent in a vote that capped the worst local election results for Prime Minister Gordon Brown's party in four decades.

With a clump of unruly blond hair sticking up during his victory speech after midnight the idiosyncratic ex-magazine editor Boris Johnson said his triumph over Labour's incumbent Ken Livingstone offered a glimpse of Britain's likely political future reported The Associated Press.
By taking power in the capital the mop-haired old Etonian became the first member of the main opposition party in a real position of power since they were swept out of office by Tony Blair's New Labour 11 years ago.
Ottoman roots:
London's new flamboyant mayor is also popular among the Turkish community in London because of his “Ottoman roots.”
Johnson is the great-grandson of Ali Kemal Bey a Turkish journalist and last interior minister in the government of Damat Ferid Pasha Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Ali Kemal Bey was lynched by the public in 1922 because of his stance against Turkish War of Independence and since then is seen by many as a symbol of “collaboration” with the West.
“We don't care about politics but we know Johnson's elders were Turks” Turkish employees in Harringey told Hürriyet newspaper . “So we voted for him” they said.
Before the landslide victory in local election Johnson told Hürriyet that he will “do whatever I can for Turaaa's EU bid and try to handle Turks' problems very closely.”
Johnson's great-grand father Ali Kemal Bey called “Artin Kemal” by his rivals fled to exile in Britain where in late 1909 his wife Winifred gave birth to a son Osman Wilfred Kemal. In 1919 Ali Kemal was appointed Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Damat Ferid Pasha replacing Mehmed Ali Bey.
Ali Kemal condemned the attacks on Armenians during World War I. In line with this attitude he also campaigned against the nationalist-Kemalist movement. Along with other conservatives serving under the Sultan in Istanbul Ali Kemal also set up an organization known as the “The Anglophile Society” (İngiliz Muhipler Cemiyeti) which advocated British protectorate status for Turaaa.
On November 4 1922 Ali Kemal was kidnapped from a barber's shop at the Tokatlıyan Hotel in Istanbul and was carried to the Asian side of the city by a motorboat en route to Ankara to be tried on charges of treason. However he never arrived there as he was lynched in İzmit by followers of Nureddin Pasha then the Commander of the First Army who was aligned with Mustafa Kemal.
Pilot scheme:
Johnson's election as the mayor of London gives the last laugh to a man once written off as a political buffoon but he comes fraught with risk for his own party commentators told Agence France-Presse.
Some commentators said his victory and Labour's wider thrashing in Thursday's local elections signalled the beginning of the end for Gordon Brown's Labour government and the renaissance of David Cameron's Conservatives ahead of a general election that must take place over the next two years.
But others cautioned that Johnson's penchant for insulting gaffes could make him a liability for the Conservatives. "By giving (Johnson) London to play with Londoners have generously agreed to participate in a pilot scheme of Cameron Conservatism for the education of the rest of the country" Andrew Rawnsley wrote Sunday in The Observer."If he screws up the capital I can write a Labour slogan for the next election: 'Don't Let Cameron Do to Britain What Boris Has Done to London."